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Viscount Goschen: There is a difference of fact between us concerning the powers and rights contained in the existing legislation with regard to harbour authorities. I would like to do a little more research and perhaps pen him a line on that specific point of the power of harbour authorities with regard to oil records.
Lord Clinton-Davis: I await with interest this growing correspondence, which will beleaguer the Minister and no doubt beleaguer those who are going to receive it. Having regard to what the Minister has said, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.15 p.m.
Lord Clinton-Davis moved Amendment No. 39:
After Clause 5, insert the following new clause--
("--.(1) It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State to maintain a register containing--
(a) any documents produced under section 257(2)(a) or copied under section 257(2)(b) of the 1995 Act;
(b) any improvement notices served under section 261 of the 1995 Act;
(c) any prohibition notice served under section 262 of the 1995 Act;
(d) all other relevant or consequent documents associated with the serving of prohibition or improvement notices under section 261 and 262 of the 1995 Act;
(e) written details of any offences committed under sections 131, 139 or 266 of the 1995 Act; and
(f) written details of fines imposed for offences under sections 131 or 139 of the 1995 Act.
(2) It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State maintaining a register under this section--
(a) to secure that the register is available, at all reasonable times, for inspection by the public free of charge;
(b) to afford members of the public facilities for obtaining copies of the documents kept in the register on the payment of reasonable charges;
(c) to supply members of the public with copies of the documents kept in the register on payment of a reasonable charge for copying, not more than two months following receipt of a written request for such documents; and
(d) to ensure that all documents mentioned in subsection (1) are placed on the register within two weeks of their being brought into existence.").
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 39 deals with improvement and prohibition notices, offences and freedom of access to information. What we are seeking to canvass here is whether legal notices and details of offences and fines relating to pollution by shipping should be kept on a public register, and of course should be available for public scrutiny.
Again, the Minister would say that, to draw the simile of the regime imposed upon land-based industry where there is regulation to this effect is not accurate as far as shipping is concerned. However, when it comes to details of offences and fines relating to pollution which has already taken place--and I am talking of course of pollution of the marine environment--that is rather different from the issues that we have been discussing hitherto.
Again, what I am sure the Minister and I are both seeking to do is to ensure that we have an effective regime for the protection of the marine environment. Therefore, I believe that these are legitimate issues to be raised and I will again await with interest the Minister's response. I beg to move.
Viscount Goschen: Again, I sympathise with the sentiment behind the amendment and I understand what the noble Lord is attempting to achieve. I believe that there would be a considerable burden on the enforcement agencies and unnecessary bureaucracy. However, I will explain how, in respect of serious cases, the noble Lord and I are at one.
My contention is that there would be no significant benefits to safety or to the prevention of pollution in disclosing details of all enforcement notices and prosecutions carried out by the agencies responsible for safety and pollution prevention.
Indeed, such information, often of a technical nature, could be open to misinterpretation and, more importantly, misused for commercial advantage and not to improve safety.
I certainly sympathise with the noble Lord's desire to expose those owners who operate substandard ships but we must maintain a sense of proportion. In serious cases, where ships are found to be unsafe to go to sea or present an unreasonable pollution risk, they are detained and details of their defects are made public every month. We are pushing for our European partners to do the same.
It was considered a brave move in some respects to publish the details of vessels that were substandard. I am pleased to say that it has attracted considerable attention from the media and we know that those who have responsibility for the vessels that are found to be substandard have a strong incentive not to have their vessels appear on this list.
Regarding the intention behind the noble Lord's amendment, I agree that, in terms of detention, our policy at the moment publicises serious cases. However, this would not be the case in relation to disclosing details of all enforcement notices and prosecutions. For those reasons I would ask the noble Lord to think again about the practical effects of what he proposes.
Lord Clinton-Davis: I am not wholly convinced about this. One often hears arguments about competitive disadvantage and I tend to think that we overdo it in this country. Perhaps the Minister will explain how anybody would be at a competitive disadvantage if information of this kind were published in the way that I have suggested, through a public register. I am not convinced about that leg of the argument.
I am glad to know that the Minister shares my views about serious incidents, and I appreciate his point about issues that might be relatively unimportant. Perhaps there is a way of identifying issues that are relatively unimportant and therefore should not be kept on any public register and those that are of much greater significance.
We are engaged here in ways and means of trying to provide for deterrence. This may be one way. To ensure that the public would become aware of aberrant behaviour of a serious kind and that that information would be readily available is something that I believe most people would think desirable. Perhaps the Minister can give the Committee an assurance that in serious cases that already happens. To define a case that is serious and one that is not very serious I find quite difficult, but it is not impossible for parliamentary draftsmen to devise ways around obstacles that might appear. There is nothing that distinguishes the Minister from myself in seeking to address this issue as far as serious matters are concerned.
I was glad to note that the Minister said in passing that the publication of details of vessels that are substandard is something that the Government are pursuing. In that regard he can rest assured that he has the full support of the Opposition. Exposure of this kind is absolutely vital and I hope he succeeds in the discussions which are to take place, or have already been taking place, within the Transport Council.
That does not really address the issue with which I have been concerned here. On this matter, again, why? Here we have moved from the original issue of garbage which we addressed earlier. I readily agree with the Minister, on reflection, that that was not an issue which really merited the line that we addressed in the amendment but did not seriously wish to pursue.
Here, the situation is markedly different. The fact that there is an imposition on land-based industry is different from the other arguments the Minister has produced as far as the quality of the argument is concerned. We are talking about issues--and I would ask the Minister to make an assumption in his reply that I am talking about serious incidents--which impose a clear duty on the land-based industries, and it may well be that land-based industries would feel they are being discriminated against if there was no comparable provision on serious matters affecting the shipping industry. Logically there
I ask the Minister to respond to those three main arguments that I have sought to adduce in support of the amendment.
Viscount Goschen: The argument is this: if the offence is serious enough--and we are all concerned to publicise the serious offences--to require the detention of a vessel, then that vessel will join the monthly list. Considerable attention will be drawn to it. The Marine Safety Agency issues press notices and, more often than not, these are picked up by the press and due publicity is given to them. I am always very pleased to see that happen. The noble Lord asked for an assurance about serious offences, and it is that if something is serious enough to warrant the detention of a vessel then the detained vessel and its details find their way onto the monthly list.
A register is rather different. Facts do not, I would suggest, jump out of registers but rely on people going to inspect them. A considerable bureaucratic burden would be imposed on the enforcement agencies in this case--it is a slightly different argument than before--but a burden nonetheless on those agencies which perform these functions to ensure accuracy and to make sure that a register was updated and kept accurate.
I feel that there would be a considerable bureaucratic burden. The very serious cases involving detention are picked up anyway, and publicised. Further, the making available of a very considerable quantity of information, I would suggest, would tend to hide the more serious cases.
I hope that that combination of arguments--the bureaucracy involved and the costs inherent in it, a possible slight clouding of the issue, and the fact that very serious cases requiring detention are already publicised with some vigour--addresses the important points raised by the noble Lord.
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